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Damn, I love when something I write in email gets taken out of context and put on blogs. Here’s such a context.

The PodCamp folks asked me if I wanted to come and speak at PodCamp.

I email back and ask them if they can cover any of my expenses in getting there. That’s what I always do. Why? Because most of the time conferences WILL cover expenses to bring in outside speakers.

It’s my responsibility to make PodTech make a profit. IT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO PUT AS FEW RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS ON MY BUSINESS AS POSSIBLE. And, yes, if there is money available to cover my expenses it IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO ASK FOR THEM!

I didn’t ask for hotel money. I have friends in New York that I’ll stay with. In fact, I didn’t ask for anything in particular. I just asked if there were any expense funds available.

But, I guess this group just wants to embarrass me. They could have simply said “no” and then I would have had to decide whether or not it was a good investment for PodTech to be there (it probably is).

Instead they took a private email, which hadn’t yet reached a conclusion, and took it into public. Wow.

Future speakers watch out when dealing with this group.

UPDATE: since my words, said in private, have now been taken public, here’s the email string in full. Please note that I was perfectly willing to fund the trip, but that THEY OFFERED THE EXPENSES AND ADMITTED THEY HAD SPONSORS!!! Read my thread. I said “I take it there’s no budget to cover travel expenses, right?”

UPDATE: Jason Van Orden, in my comments, says that Rob Safuto was not involved in the planning and the committee that was planning this doesn’t agree with him. My view? Unfortunately when you have negotiations in public view, these kinds of problems happen. It is unprofessional to be treated this way, but the blame for that lies mostly at Rob’s feet. He should have reported the facts, rather than just attacked. I hate it when people attack without even calling, or trying to get the point of view of the person who is being attacked. There’s a reason my email address and phone number are on my blog.

Here’s how I hooked mine up: Ethernet. Your PC has one of those connectors, right?

My Media Center-run PC hooks up to my Ethernet jack, which hooks up to a Wifi router. My Wifi router sprays its packets down (via 802.11a) to a Wifi antenna on my Xbox 360. Those packets get decoded, and sent from my Xbox 360 over its HD component cables to my Sony 60-inch HDTV. Which displays them for me to watch.

I hear Microsoft is selling something like 15,000 Xbox 360s every day.

Mark, if you want to fly me down to your house I’ll be happy to connect a similar system for you. It’s easy and it ROCKS.

Once you do that, you can play Rocketboom (or ScobleShow, if you like long and boring videos about the tech industry) from your PC to your HD screen. Plus music. Plus photos.

It’s the best way to hook a PC up to an HD screen and has the added benefit of being “wife approved.” Why? Cause the ugly PC doesn’t sit in your living room with your TV. Just ask Maryam how important this is to getting along with women. You don’t want to look like a billionaire geek who has no sense of style, do you?